International Waste Crises

If you heard about “China’s Green Sword” lately, that is a reference to the campaign against contaminated bales of materials that are imported to China from various countries with single-stream (aka zero-sort) recycling. A policy is under review of the World Trade Organization that would significantly reduce imports of many solid waste materials such as plastics and paper. According to Waste360, “China took in roughly 25 percent of US recycled paper exports in 2016 and anywhere between 20 percent and 33 percent of recycled plastic, depending on the type of plastic.”

Already, expectations of costs rising have influenced what recycling facilities can sell materials for. With such a large portion of the market predicted to be rejected, the bales of materials are in surplus and will only sell for very cheap prices. In some cases, the transportation costs are higher than the value of the bales, which results in inadequate disposal of recyclables in the landfill. In turn, recycling facilities must raise the cost of collecting the recyclables. In Vermont, recyclables are required to be free to dispose of by residents, so that cost falls on the towns and solid waste management entities that pay for the removal of recyclables. Businesses that pay for their own recyclables to be hauled away may see an increase in that cost as well.

The main purpose in creating this ban is to reduce the amount of poor-quality materials that contaminate bales from going into landfills in China. They also plan to increase their own recycling rates, since only 2-3 percent of waste is recycled in China. The best way to avoid trashing all these recyclables is to decrease excessive consumption and poor material management on the production of goods. Then by  increasing sorting and recycling in the United States, there will be a more efficient closed-loop economy.